By Allie Bidwell, Communications Staff

Too often, the discussion around the increasing cost of college focuses on the growth in tuition and fees. But for many students, tuition and fees make up only a small portion of the cost of attendance, and often aren’t the reasons they’re struggling financially.

But the cost of attendance calculation falls short for many students, and fails to give them a clear picture of how much it will cost to attend a particular college or university, New America has argued in a series of blog posts. During a panel discussion on Wednesday, higher education stakeholders discussed what can be done to increase the accuracy and transparency of cost of attendance measures to help students make better-informed financial decisions about college. It’s also important to get it right because cost of attendance estimates factor heavily in the awarding of federal financial aid.

Because an increasing number of students live off campus on their own, with family, or as an independent student with dependents of their own, it’s difficult for colleges to estimate living expenses for certain types of students when calculating the cost of attendance.

“This complexity has real implications for students: if institutions cannot accurately predict students costs, students may end up potentially borrowing more than they need, or worse, finding themselves unable to cover the basic costs of enrollment, making it more difficult for them to complete their course of study,” New America wrote in one of its blog posts. “And although financial aid administrators can use ‘Professional Judgment’ to adjust student budgets in extenuating circumstances, the case-by-case nature of this authority does not solve the issues that many students face.”

That’s why Rachel Fishman, a senior policy analyst at New America and an author of several of the blog posts, suggested the method for calculating cost of attendance needs to be more precise to account for different student situations – and more transparent – so students know what to expect.

The lack of specificity in the calculation of cost of attendance can have far-reaching consequences for an increasingly diverse student population, several of the panelists said. One way to improve the calculation, they said, would be to include more accurate estimates for textbooks and supplies, and include costs for other expenses, such as childcare.

The availability of on-campus childcare has steadily declined, especially at community colleges, according to research from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). Barbara Gault, vice president and executive director of IWPR, said during the panel that more than one quarter of undergraduate students have dependent children, and that number is even higher for female students. Women often have higher student loan debt because they have higher childcare costs and lower wages, she said.

“Higher education leaders could be – and should be – vocal advocates for a stronger childcare infrastructure,” Gault said.

Matt Reed, vice president for learning at Brookdale Community College in New Jersey, also said more attention needs to be paid to things like the price of textbooks.

“If you’re living in your car,” as some college students do, he said, paying hundreds of dollars for a textbook is “absurd.” Introducing open textbooks increased success rates at his institution, he said, because students actually had the book. Otherwise, students would often forgo buying the textbook, eventually fall behind, potentially drop out of certain classes, and set themselves up for academic failure.

“What starts as an economic issue becomes an academic issue,” he said, and then becomes an even more widespread economic issue as some students drop out of college.

Increasing public support for community colleges, he said, would also be helpful. Tuition and fees are typically lower at community colleges, but they are more strapped for resources, and face a social stigma as a result of being open access.

“We get folks who have nowhere else to go,” Reed said. “If we can’t provide them a way out of the situation they’re in, no one else will. They bring with them all the baggage that comes with being poor in America.”

The panelists also discussed to what extent colleges and universities are tasked with solving larger, systemic issues, and how higher education sometimes functions as a “social safety net.”

“Our institutions are on the front lines of dealing with poverty,” said Jee Hang Lee, vice president for public policy and external relations at the Association of Community College Trustees. “Many of our students have real world situations where they’re having great difficulty affording college. The federal government isn’t going to be able to [find] all the solutions to this. The reality is all the stakeholders have to come to the table … because this is hurting our students, this is hurting completion.”

Publication Date: 5/26/2016

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